I feel completely overwhelmed. So many life-altering, important things have happened this week. Topics range from homophobic football stories to elderly religious figures in funny hats. I don't even know where to begin.
According to other news outlets that are more current than this column, an LSU professor recently tried to buy a personalized NFL jersey emblazoned with the name of one of her former students, Randall Gay, a defensive back for the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. The NFL denied her request, explaining that they would not print "naughty words" on jerseys.
Ignoring the fact that there is a big, buff man out there somewhere who goes by the name Randall Gay, and that he has a manly teammate named Kory, the situation is still funny. The NFL has become the laughing stock of censors, beating out whoever made the decision to hand-draw bras on Elizabeth Berkley before airing the movie Show Girls on VH1.
The NFL has a list of over 1,100 "naughty" words that it will not print on jerseys, and like the dedicated journalist that I am, I decided to read them all and giggle. "Anus" and "Bazongas" are on there, but "Grundle" is not. "Ass Pirate" is not allowed, but "Butt Pirate" is OK. There are also terms on the list that I don't understand, such as "Kumquat" and "Glazed Donut." I know this is naive, but I'm not sure what "Glazed Donut," means—and suddenly I feel awkward about going to Krispy Kreme.
Luckily, the NFL realized its mistake and took "Gay" off of its naughty list, probably after they realized 1) that there's an actual NFL player with that name, and 2) that football involves men in Spandex pants, jumping on top of each other.
In the wake of the homoerotic football scandal, Martha Stewart was released from prison Friday. But her punishment isn't over, as she must spend another five months confined to her $16 million New York estate, with nothing to do except wander around in expensive clothes, ride her horses and be served cappuccino by servants. Man, her life is difficult. I really feel her pain. I remember when I had the flu and was stuck in my one-bedroom apartment for three days, unable to go to Kroger and stock up on generic brand chicken soup, much less fly to my other one-bedroom apartments in Connecticut, Maine and the Hamptons. But, like Martha, the Scene agreed to keep paying me my $900,000 salary while I was out.
To be truthful, I still like Martha Stewart. I don't cook and I've never purchased any of her products, but I have to respect a woman who created an empire based on shrimp forks and lace doilies. And now she's been to prison, which elevates her to the celebrity ranks of Mike Tyson and Tim Allen. "The experience of the last five months...has been life altering and life affirming," Stewart has been quoted as saying. I'm not sure what she means by that, unless she's learned the naughty prison meaning for "kumquat."
Another deprived celebrity, the down-to-earth girl who definitely earned all of her money the hard way, Paris Hilton, was sighted Friday at Eighth Avenue Burger King with that other girl who looks kind of like Lionel Richie. Paris and the other girl were shooting an episode of the reality show, The Simple Life, for which they ate Whoppers at a fast food restaurant that had real, live hobos panhandling in front of it. Paris and Not Paris wiped their mouths with paper napkins, careful not to spill any mustard on their designer dresses. The hobos looked on in hazy, hunger-filled confusion. It doesn't get much more realistic than that.
Some other stuff happened this week, but it wasn't that exciting. Despite the elections, Iraq is still an unstable place. Pope John Paul II started speaking again after his emergency tracheotomy, which is weird because I didn't think he'd done anything except mumble for years. And a bunch of movie stars gave each other little gold statues then took pictures of themselves posing with said statues. All in all, it was a very eventful week. We should probably rest this weekend to recover from all of the excitement. Take a seat on the couch, watch a little television and treat yourself to a glazed donut. Or a kumquat, if you're into that sort of thing.
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